Inside the MIH office

PHOTOS: Greg Cox | PRODUCTION: Etienne Hanekom | WORDS: Alma Viviers

Pool tables, telephone booths and lava lamps are integral to the playful new workspace of MIH, the e-media division of Naspers.

Pool tables, telephone booths and lava lamps are not the kind of quirky décor you expect in the offices of a big corporate. Yet they are integral to the playful new workspace of MIH, the e-media division of Naspers.

“Most outsiders can’t mask their surprise and respond with: ‘I want an office like this’,” says project manager Basie Crouse, who was responsible for finding suitable space and turning CEO Antonie Roux’s vision of a Google-like workplace into a reality.

After looking at various options, MIH decided to return to Cape Town’s CBD. The newly renovated OK Bazaar building on Adderley Street offered enough floor space at just the right rental.

In June the company took up residency on the fourth and fifth floors, which are arranged around a central atrium with natural light streaming into a courtyard to give an outside-inside feeling.

Part of the brief to Design 360, which was responsible for the infrastructure and spatial planning, was to do away with the dreary dry walling and generic pigeonholes synonymous with corporate offices in favour of a fun, colourful, open space.

Only structural glass partitions are used to define spaces and even the boardrooms are transparent glass boxes. “We wanted to do away with that stuffy feeling of secrecy associated with boardrooms,” he says. 

A new corporate culture

Basie admits that the new layout was an adjustment, especially for management, but says that the intention of the redesign was not only to create a new environment, but also to encourage a new corporate culture.

To compensate for all the openness, some private spaces were created. The telephone booths allow staff to take personal phone calls or do telephone interviews, plus there are double booths for private conversations. The offices have plenty of informal meeting spaces where teams can get together in loungelike environments, while lunch rooms give employees some space to relax.

Another major design feature is colour. Award-winning designers Tonic were bought in to lend their creative touch and the result is a kaleidoscope of brightly painted columns and wallpapers, a reception desk that changes colour and boardroom tables in bright yellow and turquoise. Even the ubiquitous office carpeting got reinterpreted – a kaleidoscope of pixellated shades bleed into diagonal grey stripes to create distinct colour districts.

“I would consider my job well done if we move out and the next tenant can’t use anything because it was so specific, so unique to us,” concludes Basie.

• Design 360: 021 462 6630, www.design-360.co.za
• Tonic: 011 327 2028, www.tonicdesign.co.za